Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Last summers cup to me gave a strong feeling that the NHL just doesn't get the appeal of international hockey. The whole thing just never had the right vibe around it. Everything about the marketing screamed "gimmick" to me, even excluding the gimmicky teams. That gives me serious doubts that they'll ever manage to build the kind of international prestige that best-on-best tournaments in other sports have.
Of course all they need is to find someone with the right vision and understanding, but the NHL marketing has never seemed very competent to me, even when they sell their own product. It's very rare for me to see an NHL ad and think "man I want to see that" and it really isn't that hard to get me excited about hockey 
The IOC might be a corrupt monster, but they understand their product.
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I disagree. I think you're comparing a 'Pilot Project' to an 'International Institution.'
The IOC (Corrupt Monster we agree on) doesnt have to do anything. Its the Olympics and they basically sell themselves. You cant compare the Olympics with centuries of pedigree behind them with the World Cup which, if we're honest, was borrowing a lot of Heritage for legitimacy but was really brand new.
Its a tournament in its infancy.
I think the NHL does 'get' International Hockey. They just want the money from it. And while we can scream 'Greedy Dirtbags' about the NHL at the top of our lungs all we want the truth of the matter concerning the Olympics and the NHL is:
Its the NHL's players (largely), under their contracts (Largely) in the middle of their season and they dont get any of the money.
As much as we may like the rail against Bettman, the owners and the NHL, thus far all Olympic participation has been pretty literally permitted exclusively by the good graces of the League and the Owners.